Sen. Conrad Appel, who is carrying Jindal's schools policies in the upper chamber, said he is satisfied with House Bills 974 and 976 as they emerged from the House last week. The Metairie Republican and Senate Education Committee chairman said he believes House floor amendments settle concerns over which students would qualify for state-paid private school tuition vouchers and whether existing private schools would be held accountable for the test scores of voucher recipients.

Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, said he has no plans to bring amendments. "It would be futile ... and unfair to my colleagues," he said, citing the committee's lengthy debate earlier this session on Appel's version of the same two proposals. LaFleur was the only member of Appel's committee to vote against Jindal's plans to limit teacher tenure; shift personnel authority from school boards to superintendents; expand charter schools and authorize nonstate entities to issue charters; and establish a statewide program to pay private school tuition for low-income students.

The Republicans' nods of approval -- and LaFleur's demurring -- telegraph the strategy that several lawmakers say comes directly from the administration: Jindal wants the Senate to approve the proposals as-is, so they go straight to his desk without another round of debate in the House.

Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said, "Our strategy is just for the bills to pass."

The current version of the charter-voucher expansion would open the tuition assistance to any student from a household with income at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level -- $55,000 for a family of four -- and who attends or is zoned to attend a public school rated a C, D or F on the state accountability system. But students in D or F schools are given priority, under an amendment that the Jindal administration authorized in the House.

House Democrats and some senators have expressed concern that the text is not specific enough to assure that no C-school student could get a spot over a D-school or F-school student. The bill authorizes state Superintendent of Education John White to craft rules and regulations to implement many portions of the Jindal agenda.

Walsworth said senators "are looking for some clarification" on the lottery process.

Jindal policy adviser Stafford Palmieri said Wednesday that the administration intends for participating private schools to hold lotteries if there are more eligible students than there are spots at that school. She said the lottery would be structured to ensure that D-school and F-school students always got an available spot over a C-school student.

The design could theoretically yield spots for C-school students somewhere in the state, while D-school and F-school students are denied at other campuses. But Palmieri and Plotkin said that would be a function of the parents' preferred choice of private schools, given that the lotteries would be held on a campus-by-campus basis.

"On a given campus, no (C-school) student will get a spot over a student from a D or an F school," Palmieri said.

White also would have control over an accountability program for the private schools that accept tuition-grant students. When introducing his amendment, Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, clearly stated that he believes testing voucher recipients alone, as the bill requires, "is not accountability." He said, "Testing is collecting data. Accountability is what you do with that data and the consequences attached to the results."

Public school fourth-graders and eighth-graders must pass certain standardized tests to be promoted, and schools are given public letter grades for their collective performance. Abramson has suggested that he wants the promotion requirement to extend to the private school voucher students and strip schools of their right to accept voucher money if the students are not performing at certain levels. But his amendment leaves the details to White.

Appel suggested that political reality limits anything more specific, and he said he trusts the superintendent to craft a substantive program for private schools accepting public money. Jindal has said repeatedly that "parents are the best form of accountability."

A third sticking point with some lawmakers has been whether the tuition grants will indirectly use local tax dollars. House budget Chairman Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro, authored an amendment that would block any "transfer" of local money for the program. But that prohibition is moot given that the state will pay the full grant amounts with state funds, even though it will later deduct that full amount from what a local school system receives as part of the Minimum Foundation Program formula that establishes per-pupil spending in local schools. Effectively, that means Jindal's version of the MFP voucher will depend on local support, but not take directly from local coffers in a way that would trigger Fannin's amendment.

Nonetheless, Appel said he believes the Fannin alteration "satisfies concerns about local money."